Foundation Repair Ocean City
When people think about the perfect seaside getaway in Maryland, Ocean City is always one of the names at the top of the list. The White Marlin capitol of the world draws in sports fisherman from every corner of the planet, and the Ocean City Boardwalk is a major attraction during the summer. For residents, however, Ocean City isn’t just a tourist town, it’s a seaside home that’s one of the best places to live in Maryland.
That doesn’t mean that Ocean City is free from problems. Like every other town and city in America, there is a potential crisis slowly growing larger right under the feet of the residents and business owners. It’s not something that a lot of people give much thought to, but without the intervention of expert foundation repair in Ocean City, one of Maryland’s great seaside attractions could land in some very expensive trouble.
Damage Over Time
The foundation of a home isn’t something many residents give a lot of thought to. That’s natural, since the function of a foundation isn’t meant to be noticed at all. When all works as intended a foundation is merely a base upon which a home sits, silent and stable for years.
Sometimes, however, it doesn’t work out this way.
Homes have different engineering solutions. Some homes have a foundation that is part of the basement. Other homes don’t, and simply sit on top of very stable soil. Some homes are built on or around soil that can, over time, move around in position. Still other homes are built in an environment where the soil and other conditions do a good job of absorbing moisture and holding it in, while other areas have soil that transfers that extra water to nearby structures because it can’t hold it in.
These factors, when combined with each other can have certain effects on a home’s foundation given a long enough period of time. Many homeowners will be unlikely to notice these effects because the time period over which the damage sets in can be years, even decades. A home can appear perfectly fine to the original owners, but already be incurring invisible damage to its foundation that doesn’t make itself known until a new family moves in settles down to a new home and life, only to find an old problem is now theirs to deal with. This is why foundation repair in Ocean City is so important for helping in these matters.
How Foundations Get Damaged
A foundation is built with one goal in mind; holding up a building through a calculated distribution of weight evenly across the space the home occupies. In modern homes, this is normally accomplished through excavating a hole, pouring concrete into the bottom of the hold, and then supporting what is now the basement with pillars, beams and other load bearing structures.
As time passes, this structural integrity may become affected by any number of different factors. The concrete itself, for example, is a porous material, meaning that it actually has many tiny spaces inside that water can pass into and through. If too much water comes into contact with a concrete foundation, it can leak through into the basement itself. This can cause mold growth, water damage, and many other problems including flooding if enough water accumulates in a short enough period of time.
Another way the foundation may get damaged is if it starts to move, something it was never designed to do. Although the foundation itself is made of solid concrete at is base, it is still sitting on soil. Years of weathering and other environmental factors can sometimes cause soil to move. This happens slowly, in very small increments but over years and decades this make your foundation shift, or, worse yet, leave parts of the foundation sitting on nothing. This can cause an imbalance in weight distribution that shifts over to the entire home, leading to uneven floor, cracked basement walls, or even door and window frames that are no longer straight as the house slowly tears itself apart. If you see this in a home, you’re already in need of foundation repair in Ocean City.
Fixing The Problem
The best way to solve a foundation problem is to prevent it from every happening. Foundation damage that may occur because of water, for example, can be quickly neutralized by waterproofing your basement. If you’re building a new home, you can have very comprehensive, preventive work done as the foundation itself is being built.
If you’re not building a new home, and moving into a previously owned one, there are still plenty of options available to you, it’s just a matter of getting a team experienced in foundation repair in Ocean City to give you a professional assessment of the state of your home and potential problems there may be with the foundation. AA Action Waterproofing has been doing this in Ocean City and other regions of Maryland for many years.
Addressing a foundation problem starts with one of our experts coming to your home for the initial assessment. This means looking at any visible structural problems you have already noticed, as well looking for the ones that you haven’t, which may be in out of the way crawlspaces and other areas of your home that aren’t normally visited.
From there, you will be informed about what the true extent of the damage is, and, more importantly, what caused it. An action plan can then be formed to repair the damage, and to neutralize the cause. Whatever the case, when you contact AA Action Waterproofing, you are dealing with the most experienced and professional teams for foundation repair in Ocean City. Get in touch with us today to see what we can do for you.